The Godness Of God
Sermon
Cross Purposes
Sermons for Lent and Holy Week
Ex-Senator Sam Ervin tells about a man known as the most ignorant man of Burke County, North Carolina. When he was asked if he knew what county he lived in, he said, "Nope." Did he know the name of his state? "Nope." Then he was asked whether he had ever heard of Jesus Christ. "No," he answered. Finally, in desperation, they asked him if he had ever heard of God. "I believe I have," he replied "Is his last name Damn?" This might be considered a very unusual case, but this is just about all that many know about God.
God is a live issue in our time. In 1973, eighteen prominent theologians from nine denominations met at Hartford Seminary and drew up a theological affirmation calling for a recovery of the transcendence of God. Our God, in recent years, has become too small. He has become too human, too limited. There is need to realize that God is the totally other as well as being a God closer than hands and feet.
A contemporary theologian says, "The problem of theology begins with the word 'God.' " For some the word is idolatrous. In our text, God was a problem for Moses who had an experience with God while tending sheep in the wilderness of Midian. When God told Moses to go back to Egypt and lead out the Israelites to the Promised Land, Moses faced the problem of explaining to the Israelites who God is. Moses says to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" That's our problem, too. How would you describe or explain God, the Unknowable? God's answer is simply "I am who I am." In one sense that does not say much. It sounds almost like a cop-out. Upon further thought, this is just about all that God or man can say about God. God is God. God is being. Here we see the godness of God. While we cannot say more than what God said about himself, we can see some attributes of this Being-God, the "I AM," that tells us all we really need to know about our God, the God of the Bible.
The Greatness of God
In this account of Moses's experience with God, we see the greatness of God. When God appeared to him at the burning bush, our text says, "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God." In recent years we have forgotten how great God is. He is a being of magnificence, glory, and majesty. There is none any greater than he is. He is infinite and incomprehensible. He is so great that, in himself, he is unapproachable. The most you can say about God is all too little. God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. When Paul meditates on the nature of God, he explodes, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways ... For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever."
Today our problem is that we have lost this sense of God's greatness. We have made God a "pal." We have become familiar, as though he were our big brother. We dropped the reverential "Thou" for the familiar "you." Once we had the high and distant altar, but now we have moved the altar close to the front pew to make God a little more human and knowable. As a result of this, our worship has lost the feeling of awe and mystery and wonder. Our worship has become very prosaic and informal. We think more of man and man's condition than we do of the glory of God. Hymns have become subjective or social, dealing with individual or corporate needs. In many churches the only awe we find is the "Aw, must I go to church?" In what church can you find worshipers falling on their faces in humility and with a sense of unworthiness before a mighty, glorious, tremendous God?
This is not the way it was in the Bible when man came into God's presence. God is so great that man cannot touch him. The Israelites could not touch the mountain of God lest they perish. When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, the wagon bearing the ark went over some rough road. The ark was in danger of falling off the wagon. A man, Uzzah, put his hand on the ark to keep it from falling. The moment he did, it was as though he had touched a high tension power line, for he fell over dead.
God is so great that man cannot see him. "No man has seen God at any time." At the burning bush, Moses hid his face and was afraid to look at God. At a later time Moses asked if he could see God's face, but God told him that he could not look at his face and live. He was allowed to see only the back of God as God passed by. In a natural way, we can understand that. The sun at noon is so bright that we cannot look into it with the naked eye. It is too intense and powerful. When there is an eclipse, we know that people looking at it without sun glasses destroy their sight. There are some things too bright, too glorious for the human eye to behold, and God is the greatest of all.
God is so great that man cannot speak his name. The name of God is the same as his person or nature. Do you know that no one to this day knows the real name of God? We have only the consonants in his name, YHWH. Sometimes this is developed into "Yahweh" or "Jehovah." Because the Jews did not know God's name, they used a substitute, adonai which is translated "Lord." It was their way of speaking about God without taking his name in vain, for to take his name in vain was to blaspheme the honor and greatness of God. In contrast, think of what we modern folks do to God's name. We use it irreverently in terms of swearing, profanity, and cursing. Little do we seem to realize that we are disparaging and despising the holy and great nature of God Almighty.
Since God is the greatest we can imagine, and even beyond that, instinctively we feel a reverence for God and all associated with him. In worship, we want to bow before him with awe and in a spirit of mystery. Before his greatness, we need to be still and know that he is God. "The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the world keep silence before him." His name will be spoken with respect. His day, the sabbath, will be kept holy. His house, the church, will be kept devotedly. When we realize how great God is, we see our own condition. During the American Bicentennial year, NBC's Today Show featured each week one of the fifty states. At the end of the discussion of North Dakota, the commentator told of the immense sky and land in North Dakota and then remarked, "With the immense sky and land, the people of North Dakota know their place." Before the immensity of God's greatness, we can only be still and adore.
The Power of God
In our passage of Scripture, we see also the power of God. His power was seen in the unnatural burning of the bush that did not burn up. This was so unusual that Moses' attention was called to it. This was God's way of getting Moses to enter into a conversation with him.
Sometimes modern man is so taken up with his own power that he forgets there is above him an infinite power which God can place at his disposal. We have our power tools and machinery. We have the power of nuclear bombs. We can send huge planes into the sky with many tons of cargo. We have the power to send men to the moon.
But, man's power is nothing contrasted to God's power. We get only a glimpse of that power in nature. On Good Friday, 1964, Alaska had an earthquake. It was so powerful that it lowered mountains, raised sea beds, and made an impact half way around the world. The mountains on Kodiak Island near Anchorage subsided more than seven feet. The Kenai mountains moved laterally as much as five feet. In a 480 mile by 127 mile area off the Alaska coast, the ocean floor rose as much as fifty feet.
This makes us ask, "Is there anything too hard for God?" Paul talks about a God who is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think. When you pray, do you doubt whether God is able to answer your prayer, even though it seems to take a miracle? Is it too hard for God to remove the obstacle in your life? Is it too hard for God to heal your friend? Is it too hard for God to change your life into something worthwhile? You can say it again and again: There is nothing too hard for God, for he has the power of the universe in his hands. God is even able to save and deliver us from ourselves and our enemies. Listen to Jude 24: "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing ..."
God indeed is able, but is he willing to use that power in our behalf? That is answered when a leper came to Jesus, the Son of God, and said, "If you will, you can make me clean." Note Jesus' answer: "I will; be clean." Jesus had the power to heal, but he also had the willingness to help. Man may be able but not willing, or he may be willing and not able. Here is one difference between God and man: God is both able and willing to help man. Why, then, not go to God with all your needs and problems? Take them to the Lord in prayer. Once more gain a new confidence in the power of prayer, because, through prayer, God can do all things.
The Holiness of God
It is true that no one can fully explain the true nature of God, but one more thing we know about God, according to our text. God is a holy God. This was shown to us through Moses' experience at the burning bush. When Moses approached the burning bush to see why it did not burn up, God called to him, "Moses, Moses! Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." It is holy ground because God is there. Wherever God is - in a church, in a person, in nature - there is holy ground. That is why we say "Holy Bible," because God lives and speaks through that book. We say that the church is God's house because God is present and this makes the church a holy place to be treated with reverence and silence.
What does it mean to say that God is holy? It means that God is totally other. God is different from the rest of the world. He is the creator and we are creatures. God is holy and we are sinful. God is perfect and we are the opposite. God is infinite and we are finite.
Whenever man comes into this holy presence of God, he realizes his sinfulness and unworthiness to be in the holy Presence. This explains why Moses was ordered to take off his shoes, for his shoes represented his sin and dirt. God is altogether clean and pure. Shoes and feet deal with dirt and slime. It is a way of saying that sinful man cannot come into the holy presence of God. When Isaiah was called as a prophet, he had a vision of the holiness of God and saw God seated on a throne high and lifted up. He heard the words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts." He fell on his face and cried out, "Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips." Before Isaiah could deal with God, coals touched his lips to burn away his sin. Then Isaiah could say to God, "Here I am. Send me." After a miracle, Peter confronted Jesus and realized his greatness. Peter fell down on his knees and exclaimed, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."
Because modern man - you and I - have lost this sense of the holiness of God, we do not feel the need to confess our sins. Today we are asking, "Whatever became of sin?" The answer is in another question, "Whatever became of the holiness of God?" If we realized how holy God is, we would fall on our faces begging, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Yet, this is not what we are doing. The average non-liturgical church fails to have a confession of sins in the order of worship. Some time ago, a national survey was made of American Roman Catholics over age seventeen and their going to confession. Two out of three said that they had not gone to confession during the previous two months. Confession of sins is a necessary part of worship, which means standing in the presence of a holy God. Through confession the sinner is cleansed of his sins. He confesses his wrongs, declares repentance, and has faith to accept the pardon offered by God because of Christ.
The Goodness of God
The goodness of God is a fourth attribute of God, according to our text for today. "Goodness" comes from the same root word as "God." To say "God" is to say "good," for God is good as well as great and powerful and holy. The goodness of God is spelled out when our text says, "I have seen the affliction of my people and have heard their cry. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey." This answers the common question, "Does God know what our situation is? Does he care what condition we are in?" Yes, God knows about your personal problems and what you are enduring. God knows what a mess this country is in and he is concerned about the billion people who are hungry and about the refugees who live in squalor. There is not an injustice that God does not know about or is not concerned about.
Look at the goodness of God to Moses. At the time Moses was just a shepherd tending his sheep and going about his business. Moreover, Moses was an escapee. He was a murderer in Egypt. He fled to Midian and became a tender of sheep. One day while Moses is minding his business, God comes to him in terms of a burning bush and calls Moses to be his leader to bring the enslaved people out of Egypt. See the goodness of God here. God took the initiative to come to Moses. He revealed himself to Moses. Though Moses was a criminal, God forgave him, saw in him the possibility of a great leader, and called him to serve. Wasn't that good of God?
It is an amazing thing, but the truth is that God is good to each of us. He comes to us where we are, whether we are in a palace or in a hut. He comes to our existential situation and calls us to do a great thing for him and his people. God sees much good in us. God calls us to help his people who are in trouble. He honors us with his presence.
In today's Second Lesson, Paul speaks about the goodness of God. He talks about our temptations and assures us that our temptations are no worse than what men have always faced. But, God is so good that he will not let us be tempted beyond our strength. God is good enough to make a way of escape and will give us strength to endure the temptation. How good of God! In a world of temptations, we have a God who will see us through to victory!
Today's Gospel continues to show us the goodness of God. Jesus tells a parable about a three-year old fig tree which failed to yield fruit. The owner was about to cut it down, but the gardener asked him to give it another year to produce. Christ is the gardener who asks God to have patience with us. There is one more chance to repent and turn to God. We deserve to be destroyed because of our unfruitfulness. But Christ takes our part and we are given another chance to do better. There is a goodness of God that Moses did not know. The full and perfect goodness of God is in Jesus. God was good enough to give his only Son to live an example for us to follow, to die as a sacrifice for our sin, and to rise again to assure us of life eternal. Here we are in the middle of Lent and already we can see the hill of Calvary in the distance. Once again, we shall see, on Good Friday, the perfect goodness of God in allowing the Savior to bleed and die for your sins and mine. "My God, how wonderful thou art!"
Some contemporary theologians are saying that God is the problem. No, God is not the problem; we are the problem. We do not have to explain God, but God can explain us. In the final analysis, God is God. God is being. God is reality. God is the "I AM". The godness of God becomes a reality for us in Jesus whom the Nicene Creed describes as "God of God, very God of very God." In Jesus, we see the invisible Father. In Jesus, we know the incomprehensible Almighty. Through Jesus, we become acceptable to the holy One. Come to Jesus and you come to God. Know Jesus and you know God. And to know him is to have eternal life.
God is a live issue in our time. In 1973, eighteen prominent theologians from nine denominations met at Hartford Seminary and drew up a theological affirmation calling for a recovery of the transcendence of God. Our God, in recent years, has become too small. He has become too human, too limited. There is need to realize that God is the totally other as well as being a God closer than hands and feet.
A contemporary theologian says, "The problem of theology begins with the word 'God.' " For some the word is idolatrous. In our text, God was a problem for Moses who had an experience with God while tending sheep in the wilderness of Midian. When God told Moses to go back to Egypt and lead out the Israelites to the Promised Land, Moses faced the problem of explaining to the Israelites who God is. Moses says to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" That's our problem, too. How would you describe or explain God, the Unknowable? God's answer is simply "I am who I am." In one sense that does not say much. It sounds almost like a cop-out. Upon further thought, this is just about all that God or man can say about God. God is God. God is being. Here we see the godness of God. While we cannot say more than what God said about himself, we can see some attributes of this Being-God, the "I AM," that tells us all we really need to know about our God, the God of the Bible.
The Greatness of God
In this account of Moses's experience with God, we see the greatness of God. When God appeared to him at the burning bush, our text says, "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God." In recent years we have forgotten how great God is. He is a being of magnificence, glory, and majesty. There is none any greater than he is. He is infinite and incomprehensible. He is so great that, in himself, he is unapproachable. The most you can say about God is all too little. God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. When Paul meditates on the nature of God, he explodes, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways ... For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever."
Today our problem is that we have lost this sense of God's greatness. We have made God a "pal." We have become familiar, as though he were our big brother. We dropped the reverential "Thou" for the familiar "you." Once we had the high and distant altar, but now we have moved the altar close to the front pew to make God a little more human and knowable. As a result of this, our worship has lost the feeling of awe and mystery and wonder. Our worship has become very prosaic and informal. We think more of man and man's condition than we do of the glory of God. Hymns have become subjective or social, dealing with individual or corporate needs. In many churches the only awe we find is the "Aw, must I go to church?" In what church can you find worshipers falling on their faces in humility and with a sense of unworthiness before a mighty, glorious, tremendous God?
This is not the way it was in the Bible when man came into God's presence. God is so great that man cannot touch him. The Israelites could not touch the mountain of God lest they perish. When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, the wagon bearing the ark went over some rough road. The ark was in danger of falling off the wagon. A man, Uzzah, put his hand on the ark to keep it from falling. The moment he did, it was as though he had touched a high tension power line, for he fell over dead.
God is so great that man cannot see him. "No man has seen God at any time." At the burning bush, Moses hid his face and was afraid to look at God. At a later time Moses asked if he could see God's face, but God told him that he could not look at his face and live. He was allowed to see only the back of God as God passed by. In a natural way, we can understand that. The sun at noon is so bright that we cannot look into it with the naked eye. It is too intense and powerful. When there is an eclipse, we know that people looking at it without sun glasses destroy their sight. There are some things too bright, too glorious for the human eye to behold, and God is the greatest of all.
God is so great that man cannot speak his name. The name of God is the same as his person or nature. Do you know that no one to this day knows the real name of God? We have only the consonants in his name, YHWH. Sometimes this is developed into "Yahweh" or "Jehovah." Because the Jews did not know God's name, they used a substitute, adonai which is translated "Lord." It was their way of speaking about God without taking his name in vain, for to take his name in vain was to blaspheme the honor and greatness of God. In contrast, think of what we modern folks do to God's name. We use it irreverently in terms of swearing, profanity, and cursing. Little do we seem to realize that we are disparaging and despising the holy and great nature of God Almighty.
Since God is the greatest we can imagine, and even beyond that, instinctively we feel a reverence for God and all associated with him. In worship, we want to bow before him with awe and in a spirit of mystery. Before his greatness, we need to be still and know that he is God. "The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the world keep silence before him." His name will be spoken with respect. His day, the sabbath, will be kept holy. His house, the church, will be kept devotedly. When we realize how great God is, we see our own condition. During the American Bicentennial year, NBC's Today Show featured each week one of the fifty states. At the end of the discussion of North Dakota, the commentator told of the immense sky and land in North Dakota and then remarked, "With the immense sky and land, the people of North Dakota know their place." Before the immensity of God's greatness, we can only be still and adore.
The Power of God
In our passage of Scripture, we see also the power of God. His power was seen in the unnatural burning of the bush that did not burn up. This was so unusual that Moses' attention was called to it. This was God's way of getting Moses to enter into a conversation with him.
Sometimes modern man is so taken up with his own power that he forgets there is above him an infinite power which God can place at his disposal. We have our power tools and machinery. We have the power of nuclear bombs. We can send huge planes into the sky with many tons of cargo. We have the power to send men to the moon.
But, man's power is nothing contrasted to God's power. We get only a glimpse of that power in nature. On Good Friday, 1964, Alaska had an earthquake. It was so powerful that it lowered mountains, raised sea beds, and made an impact half way around the world. The mountains on Kodiak Island near Anchorage subsided more than seven feet. The Kenai mountains moved laterally as much as five feet. In a 480 mile by 127 mile area off the Alaska coast, the ocean floor rose as much as fifty feet.
This makes us ask, "Is there anything too hard for God?" Paul talks about a God who is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think. When you pray, do you doubt whether God is able to answer your prayer, even though it seems to take a miracle? Is it too hard for God to remove the obstacle in your life? Is it too hard for God to heal your friend? Is it too hard for God to change your life into something worthwhile? You can say it again and again: There is nothing too hard for God, for he has the power of the universe in his hands. God is even able to save and deliver us from ourselves and our enemies. Listen to Jude 24: "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing ..."
God indeed is able, but is he willing to use that power in our behalf? That is answered when a leper came to Jesus, the Son of God, and said, "If you will, you can make me clean." Note Jesus' answer: "I will; be clean." Jesus had the power to heal, but he also had the willingness to help. Man may be able but not willing, or he may be willing and not able. Here is one difference between God and man: God is both able and willing to help man. Why, then, not go to God with all your needs and problems? Take them to the Lord in prayer. Once more gain a new confidence in the power of prayer, because, through prayer, God can do all things.
The Holiness of God
It is true that no one can fully explain the true nature of God, but one more thing we know about God, according to our text. God is a holy God. This was shown to us through Moses' experience at the burning bush. When Moses approached the burning bush to see why it did not burn up, God called to him, "Moses, Moses! Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." It is holy ground because God is there. Wherever God is - in a church, in a person, in nature - there is holy ground. That is why we say "Holy Bible," because God lives and speaks through that book. We say that the church is God's house because God is present and this makes the church a holy place to be treated with reverence and silence.
What does it mean to say that God is holy? It means that God is totally other. God is different from the rest of the world. He is the creator and we are creatures. God is holy and we are sinful. God is perfect and we are the opposite. God is infinite and we are finite.
Whenever man comes into this holy presence of God, he realizes his sinfulness and unworthiness to be in the holy Presence. This explains why Moses was ordered to take off his shoes, for his shoes represented his sin and dirt. God is altogether clean and pure. Shoes and feet deal with dirt and slime. It is a way of saying that sinful man cannot come into the holy presence of God. When Isaiah was called as a prophet, he had a vision of the holiness of God and saw God seated on a throne high and lifted up. He heard the words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts." He fell on his face and cried out, "Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips." Before Isaiah could deal with God, coals touched his lips to burn away his sin. Then Isaiah could say to God, "Here I am. Send me." After a miracle, Peter confronted Jesus and realized his greatness. Peter fell down on his knees and exclaimed, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."
Because modern man - you and I - have lost this sense of the holiness of God, we do not feel the need to confess our sins. Today we are asking, "Whatever became of sin?" The answer is in another question, "Whatever became of the holiness of God?" If we realized how holy God is, we would fall on our faces begging, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Yet, this is not what we are doing. The average non-liturgical church fails to have a confession of sins in the order of worship. Some time ago, a national survey was made of American Roman Catholics over age seventeen and their going to confession. Two out of three said that they had not gone to confession during the previous two months. Confession of sins is a necessary part of worship, which means standing in the presence of a holy God. Through confession the sinner is cleansed of his sins. He confesses his wrongs, declares repentance, and has faith to accept the pardon offered by God because of Christ.
The Goodness of God
The goodness of God is a fourth attribute of God, according to our text for today. "Goodness" comes from the same root word as "God." To say "God" is to say "good," for God is good as well as great and powerful and holy. The goodness of God is spelled out when our text says, "I have seen the affliction of my people and have heard their cry. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey." This answers the common question, "Does God know what our situation is? Does he care what condition we are in?" Yes, God knows about your personal problems and what you are enduring. God knows what a mess this country is in and he is concerned about the billion people who are hungry and about the refugees who live in squalor. There is not an injustice that God does not know about or is not concerned about.
Look at the goodness of God to Moses. At the time Moses was just a shepherd tending his sheep and going about his business. Moreover, Moses was an escapee. He was a murderer in Egypt. He fled to Midian and became a tender of sheep. One day while Moses is minding his business, God comes to him in terms of a burning bush and calls Moses to be his leader to bring the enslaved people out of Egypt. See the goodness of God here. God took the initiative to come to Moses. He revealed himself to Moses. Though Moses was a criminal, God forgave him, saw in him the possibility of a great leader, and called him to serve. Wasn't that good of God?
It is an amazing thing, but the truth is that God is good to each of us. He comes to us where we are, whether we are in a palace or in a hut. He comes to our existential situation and calls us to do a great thing for him and his people. God sees much good in us. God calls us to help his people who are in trouble. He honors us with his presence.
In today's Second Lesson, Paul speaks about the goodness of God. He talks about our temptations and assures us that our temptations are no worse than what men have always faced. But, God is so good that he will not let us be tempted beyond our strength. God is good enough to make a way of escape and will give us strength to endure the temptation. How good of God! In a world of temptations, we have a God who will see us through to victory!
Today's Gospel continues to show us the goodness of God. Jesus tells a parable about a three-year old fig tree which failed to yield fruit. The owner was about to cut it down, but the gardener asked him to give it another year to produce. Christ is the gardener who asks God to have patience with us. There is one more chance to repent and turn to God. We deserve to be destroyed because of our unfruitfulness. But Christ takes our part and we are given another chance to do better. There is a goodness of God that Moses did not know. The full and perfect goodness of God is in Jesus. God was good enough to give his only Son to live an example for us to follow, to die as a sacrifice for our sin, and to rise again to assure us of life eternal. Here we are in the middle of Lent and already we can see the hill of Calvary in the distance. Once again, we shall see, on Good Friday, the perfect goodness of God in allowing the Savior to bleed and die for your sins and mine. "My God, how wonderful thou art!"
Some contemporary theologians are saying that God is the problem. No, God is not the problem; we are the problem. We do not have to explain God, but God can explain us. In the final analysis, God is God. God is being. God is reality. God is the "I AM". The godness of God becomes a reality for us in Jesus whom the Nicene Creed describes as "God of God, very God of very God." In Jesus, we see the invisible Father. In Jesus, we know the incomprehensible Almighty. Through Jesus, we become acceptable to the holy One. Come to Jesus and you come to God. Know Jesus and you know God. And to know him is to have eternal life.
